Since this is the second part of the series, I’m just going to go straight into it.

As mentioned in the previous post, we did spend a lot of time strolling around the beau’s campus, and there was this particular day when the sunlight was heavenly and the blooms vibrant and extremely picturesque. We were taking a walk to the market – his campus is more or less the midpoint between his flat and the market – to get some groceries for cooking (home-cooked food!) later that evening, and the views en route were so very lovely!

We found some cherry blossoms as well! I love how the sunlight shines through the petals here. Throughout the walk, I found myself stopping every few steps along the way to take yet another picture, and another, and another. Guildford’s flora is so beautiful in the spring, especially in the morning sunshine. The following two pictures were taken right in the heart of his campus, where the foliage was extremely lush.

Somehow I didn’t take that many pictures of myself then so the beau was my main subject.

These reminded me more of the fall due to their burnt orange hues but I like how they’re slightly muted and provide some contrast to the more spring-like flowers. Once again, it’s such a shame I didn’t take full advantage of the settings for some style-inclined pictures – the backdrops would’ve been absolutely gorgeous!

Cooking at home is another one of the things we really enjoy doing. Maybe because it still has to do with food essentially, but we do love cooking together as a couple. The beau’s flat in Guildford was the perfect place to experiment with cooking as we had completely free reign over the kitchen, and a significant chunk of our time was spent whisking eggs into submission and sprinkling grated cheddar over freshly cooked pasta.

We particularly love baking our pasta after cooking it to give it a bit of a kick, and we’d entertain ourselves with a few rounds of Tekken or Call of Duty while waiting for our food to bake in the oven. Our days in Guildford were very chilled and laid back as compared to when we did head over to London, which I’d deem as a good thing as we then got to experience the best of both worlds.

Nothing beats the smell of sizzling bacon and the sound of bubbling cream sauce in a pan. We love drizzling Tabasco sauce over our Carbonara. This is inarguably the beau’s most favoured pasta sauce, so of course we made it a whole lot. I on the other hand, prefer a bit of both ends of the spectrum – creamy tomato would be a good choice, as there’s not too much cream and not too much tomato. Mm. And we always make huge portions and then keep the leftovers for the next meal – something we actually love doing unless we’re in the mood for some takeaway or a meal out.

We had a go with many more recipes but I didn’t capture each and every one of them. The beau is an amazing cook and I love the dishes he makes, particularly his baked fish with cheese and lemon butter, topped with fragrant herbs. It is divine. He’s definitely more experimental than me when it comes to cooking, as I naturally tend to stick to pasta because I’m a pasta freak. I love pasta. I can eat pasta every single day, all day, err day.

We also definitely love our spices – should we ever go super long-term and actually start living together, we’ve agreed on having our very own incredibly well-stocked spice rack and it’d be our pride and joy of the kitchen, inducing spice and kitchen envy everywhere the world over. We’d travel all over the world and return with rare, exotic spices.. and probably plenty of other things as well, knowing myself and my shopping tendencies.

I spent a considerable amount of time on Tumblr back then as well, and I think it has somewhat influenced me in making these sort of things for breakfast or as a teatime snack for us. Big dollops of Nutella melted on hot toast, topped with fresh strawberries and bananas. I’d probably have gotten a lot more creative with the aesthetics if I had icing sugar and whipped cream on hand.

Once in a while, we’d also head to the local Gourmet Burger Kitchen for good, hearty burgers and their shoestring fries dipped in blue cheese. I’m in no way a fan of blue cheese per se but dipping the fries in their blue cheese dip was delicious. I still can’t stand it in my burger though, although the beau loves it (I refuse to go near him for a good hour or two after that).

Oh, and they’ve incredible milkshakes too. I love classic vanilla milkshakes but they make a good honeycomb one which is quite unique.

There’s nothing better than going home and snuggling up under the cosy, warm covers with your loved one after a long day. We love reading and watching a few films in the night, more so in bed but you’d have to factor in the undoubtedly higher tendencies of falling asleep and only waking up when the film has already ended.

Guildford felt very much like a holiday home to me, mainly because I went down during my long breaks from university. We would stay up late in the night, just talking for hours and hours on end in between the sheets (we’ve hit the seven-hour conversation mark before, without any stops whatsoever), and wake when the sun was already high up in the sky. Having said that, I’m still very much a morning person and would greatly prefer rising before noon or risk being temperamental for the rest of the day.

..I just really like my mornings.

Back when we were only in our second month of being together. We’re now in the midst of our third year. I’d definitely win an award for the most backlogged post of all time. Hands down, bar none.